


Take It on Faith

by hardboiledbaby



Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-11
Updated: 2010-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-07 21:58:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardboiledbaby/pseuds/hardboiledbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place after "Smiler With a Gun." Because you know there had to be fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take It on Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Callisto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callisto/gifts).



> The boys aren't mine. They're probably not yours, either. But if they are, I make no money off of this, just so you know.
> 
> Beta'd by an awesome triumvirate: SC_Fossil, Equusentric, and Dawnebeth. But as is her wont, the muse has stuck her sticky little fingers in after the fact. All errors will have her fingerprints on them.

Kid Curry squinted against the late afternoon glare and scanned the lonely horizon through narrowed lids. Overhead, the sky was a deep, clear blue and the sun was bright, but there was something unsettling about it, a sharpness that felt wrong. It was as if a storm was brewing, even though there wasn't a cloud in sight. He automatically glanced at his partner, riding a couple of yards ahead and off to his left, and wondered if Heyes felt it too.

Not that he was going to ask. Heyes had been preoccupied and distracted, but Kid hadn't been much in the mood for talking, either. In fact, they'd hardly exchanged a word since they'd left Matherville. There was something unsettling about that, too—a silence that hung heavily, awkward and chafing like a waterlogged jacket.

The lack of conversation itself wasn't what was troubling Kid. Heyes could surely talk Kid's ear off when he had a mind to, but it wasn't unusual for there to be long stretches when neither of them spoke much, if at all. Hour after tedious hour on horseback had a way of doing that, wearing them down to little more than a companionable nudge and grunt. It never really mattered much, because the words weren't important, not to them. But this was different.

This was a silence that bristled with hard edges and sharp corners, an invisible, intruding presence. Kid could sense its shadow looming over him and Heyes, creeping in just beyond the edge of his vision. There seemed to be no escaping it—it rode with them by day, crawled between their bedrolls at night. Kid felt it crowding him, could almost touch it. He knew if he could see it, it would be smiling at him, mocking him, even in death.

Kid grimaced and urged his horse to pick up the pace. He pulled his hat down low, blocking out the shadow, the silence, and the brittle, over-bright sky.

*****

Hannibal Heyes leaned back in his chair and stifled a yawn. The stale, smoky air in the saloon was getting to him. They'd been in Pritchard for three days, and it felt like all 72 hours of it had been spent sitting at one poker table after another. This game in particular had been going on all afternoon, and it was now nearly midnight. Of the original players, only Heyes and a drifter named Radford were left. One by one, the others had washed out, and their losses, a rather tidy sum, sat on the table between the two remaining men.

Radford appeared to be a handful of years older than Heyes, tall and bulky, with long blond hair that fell in greasy swaths across his forehead. His scarred knuckles and crooked nose made it plain he was a man who settled disputes with his fists, but something in his eyes, even half-hidden by cigar smoke and shaggy bangs, told Heyes he wasn't a stranger to more... persuasive forms of argument. Heyes wasn't the only one who sensed it, either. He knew it was no accident that Kid, lounging casual-like at the bar, had chosen to watch the proceedings from a spot with a clear line of sight to Radford as well as to Heyes.

Kid looked weary too, and a pang of sympathy tinged with guilt struck Heyes as he looked at his partner. He was well aware that the fatigue wasn't just physical. Kid's spirit was hurting, had been for days now. Heyes felt the pain as if it was his own, but he didn't have the first clue as to what to do about it. Hell, he himself had yet to fully come to terms with Danny Bilson's death, and he hadn't even been the one to pull the trigger. It bothered him, far more than he'd ever admit to anyone, that he hadn't yet been able to find the right words to fix things. And it frightened him to think that, maybe, he never would.

But that wasn't the worst of it. He found himself struggling with the realization that, for the first time, Kid had faced an opponent who matched his skill with a gun. More than matched it, according to Kid. _"Danny could've outshot me easy,"_ he'd said, _"but I got lucky."_ Heyes felt his guts twist again at the memory. Luck was for cards, not for bullets.

"Well? Are you in or not?" The raspy growl brought Heyes' attention back to the game. He shunted the worry aside and concentrated on his opponent, who was pouring himself yet another whiskey.

Radford was a fair-to-middlin' poker player and had had a few lucky breaks earlier in the afternoon, but that had been followed by more than a few unlucky ones, and he was nearly tapped out. As his pile of chips dwindled, so did the level of liquor in the bottle at his side. Now it stood empty, and he swallowed the last few drops in his glass before setting it down on the table.

Heyes fanned his cards slowly, even though he already knew what he held in his hand. After a moment, he pushed a few chips forward. "I'll see you, and raise."

Radford scowled. "Damn you, Smith, it's gonna take all I got to match that."

"I know," Heyes said calmly. "You should have thought about that before you anted up again. It's why I didn't raise the stakes any higher. I'm giving you a chance to see this hand through."

Radford's jaw tightened, and it was obvious that he didn't appreciate Heyes' thoughtfulness. Out of the corner of his eye, Heyes saw Kid shift his stance.

"Fine," Radford spat out, shoving the last of his chips in. "I call." He flung down his cards defiantly. "Three kings."

"Deuces full," Heyes laid out his full house. "Sorry. Thanks for the ga—" Radford's hand shot out and grabbed Heyes by his right wrist just as he was scooping up the pot. Kid immediately took a step towards the table, but Heyes quickly sent him a glance that brooked no argument. _Back off._ Kid stopped in his tracks, but Heyes could feel the tension radiating off of him.

"Best you let go of me, Radford," Heyes said, calm like before. "This was a friendly little game, and it'd be a shame if it ended badly."

"You see, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid," Radford replied, his eyes glittering. "A bad ending. For me, anyways."

Ignoring him, Heyes went on, "You're not going to get away with this. There are too many witnesses." He waved his free hand around at the mostly empty room. "If you just walk away now, we can both forget this minor unpleasantness, what do you say?" He tested Radford's grip, pulling and twisting his arm, but it wouldn't budge. "Don't let the booze make you do something you're going to regret," he warned. Radford shook his head and favored him with a nasty smile.

"Regret? Everything I have is on this here table, and the only thing I'll regret is if I leave it here. There's no way in hell I'm walking away from this."

Heyes felt the swing coming before he saw it. _Oh, shit_, he thought.

It was his last thought for quite a while.

*****

"I see a scar here, on his forehead. Bullet, eh? Your friend's rather lucky, for being such an unlucky fella. He must have a pretty hard noggin."

Kid managed a faint snort. "Doc, you have no idea."

"Oh, it's a pretty common condition 'round these parts, my boy, especially among the young bucks," the doctor chuckled. "Anyway, in this case, I reckon it's working to his advantage."

He couldn't have been more than a dozen years older than Kid, but he seemed to enjoy playing up the grandfatherly image. Under other circumstances, it might have been comical, but as it was, Kid found it oddly reassuring.

The man worked quickly, deftly wrapping a bandage around Heyes' head. When he was done, he peeled back Heyes' eyelids and grunted approvingly. "Yep, hard noggin. Now," he turned to Kid, "let's take a look at you."

"No need for that. I'll be fine."

"That may be, but seeing as how I'm already here, I'd like to satisfy my professional curiosity, if it's all the same to you." He herded Kid toward a chair. "Come on, humor an old man."

Kid was too tired to argue. He sat down and let the doctor cut away the shredded remains of his left sleeve and the bandana that had been hastily wrapped around his forearm. He barely flinched as the cuts were cleaned and dressed. He didn't have the energy for it. He was using every scrap he could muster to focus on his partner. Heyes was so still, so pale. He'd bled so much.

"Scalp wounds tend to do a lot of bleeding, son." Startled, Kid stared at the doctor, who was watching him with perceptive eyes. "I wouldn't worry too much. The lacerations weren't deep."

"He was out for a long while, that other time," Kid said softly.

"A close thing, eh?" The doc nodded sympathetically. "Well, not this time. I'm sure he'll be waking up soon."

When he finished binding Kid's arm, he asked, "How's about something for the pain?" Kid shook his head, and the doctor didn't look surprised. "Yeah, I figured you'd want to keep an eye on him." He began packing his supplies and equipment away. "He'll have one whopper of a headache when he comes to, and possibly some nausea, but that's only to be expected. I'll leave you some paregoric, give him a spoonful if he's hurting bad. If there's anything else, you send for me right away, you got that? Otherwise, I'll come check on you boys in the morning. Get yourself cleaned up and try to rest." He patted Kid on the shoulder and left.

_Get cleaned up._ Kid looked down numbly. _Oh. Right._ He got to his feet slowly and went over to his saddlebags for another pair of pants. Somehow, Heyes had managed not to bleed all over himself, a fine trick for an unconscious man. Instead, he'd done so on Kid, as Kid cradled him in his lap and frantically tried to staunch the flow.

All because he'd been too far away. It had only been a matter of yards, yet it was still too far. Or maybe he was just too damn slow.

Kid had started to rush forward again when he saw Radford grab the bottle, but it was too late. Radford swung. The bottle connected with the side of Heyes' head, and he went down in a shower of glass.

Seeing Heyes crumple like a puppet with its strings cut was the stuff of nightmares, only this was a waking nightmare, a recurring one. Heyes had dropped that way when he'd been shot, unceremoniously pitched off his horse like a sack of grain. That months-old memory was still as fresh and as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. Then again, Kid would be old and gray before _that_ image would ever fade. Hell, he'd be cold in his grave, first.

Kid removed his boots, then stripped off his pants with a shudder of revulsion. He wouldn't be wearing _those_ again. He pulled off his torn shirt as well, and used it as a rag with some water to wash up as best he could. A real bath would have to wait.

When he was done, he checked on Heyes, but there was no change. Kid stood beside the bed, gazing at the features that he'd committed to memory long ago. The face he knew by heart.

Heyes was too thin, but he was always too thin. All too often, he'd forget to eat a proper meal if the cards were favoring him. If they weren't, well, sometimes that meant neither of them ate much anyway. His unnatural pallor made him look gaunt and haggard. Kid reached out and gently cupped the side of Heyes' slack face, brushing his thumb lightly over a brow and cheekbone before drawing back.

This life of theirs was going to make them old before their time.

Or not.

Kid turned down the lamp and pushed it to the back of the nightstand, thickening and shifting the shadows around them. He began to pull the chair up closer to the bed, but then he changed his mind, leaving it where it was, outside the small pool of light. He sank into it, resting his aching arm in his lap.

Last time, it had been a bullet, and he had made it his mission to find the man who fired it. This time, there was no mystery to solve, no elusive killer to track down. Radford was locked up, so there was nothing for Kid to do, except watch and wait. Patience wasn't exactly his strong suit, but he didn't have a choice in the matter. He sat in the silence, and tried to ignore the flickering shadows leering at him from the blurry corners of the room.

He hadn't really had a choice in Matherville, either. No matter how many times he went over it in his mind, he couldn't see it ending any other way. The die had been cast the instant Danny knew they were still alive. The showdown that followed was unavoidable.

Maybe they shouldn't have tracked him down, things would have been different, then... but Kid was honest enough with himself to admit that that had never been an option for him. The need to find the cold-hearted bastard who had stolen their gold and stranded them in the desert burned like acid. After old Seth died, Kid knew he could never rest until he'd settled the score. They managed to survive the trek only through sheer cussedness and a little luck. At the end of it, all he could think about was getting his revenge on the one person responsible for what they'd gone through.

Well, he'd gotten it, all right. He just never dreamed that Danny would exact his own kind of revenge as well.

The taint of Danny's blood was on Kid's hands, and would remain for as long as he lived. He'd put their chance for amnesty in jeopardy; not by robbing a bank or a train, but by taking another man's life. He wasn't sure if Heyes could forgive him for that. Maybe he didn't deserve to be forgiven.

Maybe Danny would have the last laugh, after all.

*****

_He was swimming up from the bottom of a deep, murky pond. The water was cold and ropy, and black as sin. It pulsed around him, through him. Every stroke was exhausting work, and he didn't know how many times he gave up before finally, finally, he broke the surface._

Heyes opened his eyes. Everything was dim and fuzzy, and his head ached. He blinked several times, and things slowly started to come into focus, although it was still too dark to see much.

He tried to lift his head to get a better idea of where he was, but the aching escalated to an insistent pounding, and he quickly abandoned the attempt. He winced, closing his eyes again.

He heard the creak of floorboards, and pried his lids open a crack. He saw the outline of a man and knew instinctively it was Kid. The creak came closer, and the feeble light grew a bit brighter. He opened his eyes a little more. Kid was standing nearby.

"Wha—" It came out in a rusty croak, so he swallowed and cleared his throat before trying again. "What happened?"

"Don't you remember?"

"I... I'm not sure." Heyes tried to think back, before the dark. _Something_ had happened, but it was all jumbled up. "I got shot?"

"Not this time." Kid's voice was grim. "You got bashed in the head with a bottle."

"Oh." He reached up gingerly, felt the makings of a fearsome knot under the wrapping, above his left ear.

"How do you feel?"

"Like I was kicked in the head by a mule."

"You said _that_ when you got shot, too," Kid said tightly. "You think you're gonna be sick?" He held out the empty water basin.

"No." Heyes began to shake his head, but caught himself just in time. He was a little queasy, but if he held still, his stomach seemed willing to keep the churning to a manageable level. As Kid bent over to slide the basin under the bed, Heyes noticed the bandaged arm. "What happened to you?"

"Same bottle." So casually, that Heyes didn't get it at first. Then he did. For a moment, Heyes thought he'd need that basin after all.

"Y-you okay?"

Kid nodded curtly. He looked exhausted, and almost as shitty as Heyes felt.

"Kid..."

Kid held up a vial. "The doctor said for you to take this, it'll help with the pain."

Heyes was tempted, but he wanted his head clear. Something was wrong, off-kilter, and he needed to figure out what. "It's not that bad." Kid looked like he was going to be bull-headed about it, but he shrugged and then he was in a chair beyond the foot of the bed, sitting in the gloom. It was too far away for Heyes to see his expression clearly. Too far away to touch. He suddenly realized that Kid hadn't touched him, and he knew something was very, very wrong.

Then Heyes remembered. Pritchard. The poker game. Radford.

Alarmed, he said, "Kid, what happened to Radford?"

Kid's head snapped up. "I didn't kill him, if that's what you're worried about," he said stiffly.

Heyes gaped in confusion. "It's not. That's not what I meant. Why—"

"Forget it. Never mind."

"What the hell are you saying?"

"Nothing. Radford's in jail."

"I don't give a shit about him. Tell me—"

"Nothing to tell. I said, forget it."

Heyes gritted his teeth. "No, there's something, all right. Finish what you started."

"Let it go, Heyes—"

"Now, damn it!" Heyes glared at Kid, or tried to. It was probably more of a pathetic grimace, but it was all he had to work with. He hoped it would be enough.

A long pause. Finally, Kid sighed. "Heyes, why'd you stop me when Radford made his move? The son of a bitch had at least three inches and 40 pounds on you."

"I-I figured I could handle him, talk him out of doing something stupid."

"Well, that sure turned out dandy, didn't it?"

Heyes flushed at the sarcasm. "You jumping in would have just made him madder," he protested.

"Madder." The disbelief in Kid's tone was obvious. "You've got to be kidding me. That's not the way we do things, Heyes."

"Well, maybe we need to start changing the way we do things before one of us gets killed."

"Or before I kill someone else. That's the real reason, isn't it? Isn't that why you held me off? You didn't trust me not to...." Kid made an impatient sound, and stood up abruptly. He went over to the window and stared out into the night.

_Is that what this is about?_ thought Heyes, stunned. "Kid, what happened with Danny wasn't your fault. He was the one who left us to die, and he was the one who drew down on you. None of that was your doing. Danny was a murderer, plain and simple. He didn't shoot Seth, but he murdered him just the same. The Good Book says, 'an eye for an eye.' The law couldn't touch Danny, but what you did, it was justice."

Without turning, Kid replied, "Yeah, well, the Good Book also says, 'thou shalt not kill.' Seems to me, I can hardly be said to be delivering divine retribution with one hand while I'm breaking Commandments with the other."

Heyes was at a loss. "God works in mysterious ways, Kid. You have to have faith."

"Faith, huh?" Kid laughed, and the hollow sound was nothing Heyes had ever heard come out of Kid's mouth before. He would have gladly gone his whole life without hearing it.

"Kid?" When his partner wouldn't turn or answer, Heyes pushed aside the covers and swung his feet off the bed. He tried to stand, but the floor rocked violently and he lurched heavily against the nightstand. The movement set off a vicious hammering that threatened to split his skull wide open, and his stomach joined in the uproar. A groan escaped from between his clenched teeth.

"Damn it—" Kid was at his side in three quick strides. "Don't be stupid. Where do you think you're going?"

He would have gone to his knees if Kid hadn't grabbed him. The room tilted again, and Heyes hung on desperately. Kid sat him back on the bed. The basin was once again thrust at him, and this time he didn't refuse it.

The retching seemed to go on and on, each miserable spasm of his gut sending spikes of pain shooting into his brain. Through it, he was vaguely aware of strong arms and a soothing voice, a cool cloth and gentle hands.

When it was finally over, Kid gave him some water. "How's about some of that medicine, huh?"

"No." If his head hadn't exploded by now, it wasn't going to. Probably. Besides, their conversation wasn't over yet.

"Stubborn ass." Kid's exasperated tone was belied by the careful way he held Heyes by the shoulders as Heyes lay back down.

When Kid let go and made to step away, Heyes reached up and grabbed fistfuls of Kid's henley. "Stay. I just... I need to see your face." After a moment, Kid eased himself onto the edge of the bed, hip to hip with Heyes.

"What do you see when you look at me, Heyes?"

Heyes felt his eyes burn. He released his grip on Kid's shirt and transferred it to the leg pressed along his side, holding on to its solid presence instead.

"I see what I've always seen. My partner, my best friend, the finest man I know." _The other half of my soul._

Kid shook his head, his expression bleak. "I'm not the same man I was, before the desert, before Danny. I'm never gonna be that man again."

Heyes knew that to deny it was pointless. His mouth was dry as he asked, "Can you live with that?" He felt the muscles under his hands tense.

"Can you?" Kid shot back. "I could've cost us our amnesty by killing Danny, but I didn't care. I wanted to make him pay for what he did to Seth, for what he tried to do to us. In a way, I'm almost glad he called me out. Danny was bound and determined to prove he was the better gunman. When he started shouting insults at me in the middle of the street, I knew then that he wasn't going to let me leave without putting it to the test. That's where he made his mistake."

"What do you mean?"

"Once he'd made up his mind to have it out with me, Danny was going to go down, one way or the other. He just didn't know it. Remember what the sheriff said? 'If there's a gunfight, whoever started it better lose, or he's in for a lot of trouble.' If Danny had killed me, he would've been arrested for starting the fight. So it didn't really matter which of us was left standing."

Heyes' blood ran cold. He felt sick again, and it had nothing to do with the bump on his head.

"'Didn't really matter'? Are you out of your fucking mind? Since when is 'kill or be killed' a good solution to anything?"

Kid's face darkened. "I didn't say it was a _good_ solution. And it was Danny who forced the issue. So I'm not going to pretend to be sorry it happened." He looked away. "But I'm not proud of it. I... I wish you didn't have to see it." He sounded at once both little-boy-lost and impossibly old.

_Oh, Kid._ The hammering was now in Heyes' chest, hard and fast. So tight, he could barely breathe.

"So, can you? Can you live with what I did?"

The words, right ones or not, came out, hot and fierce.

"Listen to me. It doesn't matter how much you wanted to get even. You did _not_ murder Danny. Yes, you killed him, but it was in self-defense. I can live with that. What I can't live with is the thought of you, lying dead someplace because some bastard lowlife like him got the drop on you. Whatever you have to do to stay alive, you do it, you hear me? Because I can't lose you. I don't give a damn about anything or anyone else."

A welter of emotions passed across Kid's face; relief, sadness, despair, and other feelings that flashed too quickly for Heyes to register before Kid lowered his head and brushed his hand quickly across his eyes.

"Heyes..." he hesitated, weighing his words before he continued, almost reluctantly, "Heyes, no matter how good or how fast a man is..."

"...there's always someone else better and faster out there, somewhere. I know, I know. But, so help me, Kid, until you faced off with Danny, I don't think I ever truly believed it _here_." Heyes placed his fist over his heart. "Damn it, you know how much that scares the shit out of me?"

After they'd crossed their own personal Rubicon years ago, Heyes didn't think that anyone could seriously come between them. But Danny had. God, he was glad the man was dead, but the price had been too high. A sense of his own mortality was one thing, but facing Kid's had been like looking into Hell. And he could only imagine how Kid felt, what his soul would have to carry.

Kid shrugged helplessly, and laid his hand on top of Heyes'.

"I can't help that. As long as we're doing what we're doing, we'll always face some kind of risk, you and me both. I guess... you just have to have faith."

"Faith, huh?"

"I mean, faith in _us_."

"Kid, I always did." In the face of Kid's raised brow, he amended that to, "Okay, almost always."

Kid squeezed Heyes' hand tightly in his. "Yeah, me too."

Heyes took a deep breath and felt the tight knot in his chest loosen. _Yeah._

He rubbed his thumb across the scraped and bruised knuckles. "Kid? What exactly _did_ you do to Radford, anyway?"

"I think I broke his hand, or his wrist, maybe... and, uh, his nose."

Heyes grinned. "Well, it's not like he was pretty before."

Kid smiled, really smiled, for what seemed like the first time in days, and Heyes felt the world right itself at the sight. There was sadness too, but Heyes was confident that would fade, in time. He had faith.

Of course, it would be nice if he could see more of it...

"Speaking of not being pretty, are you ever gonna get rid of _that_?" He pointed to Kid's upper lip. Kid looked mildly surprised for a moment, then his expression grew thoughtful. He stroked the mustache with a finger.

"I don't rightly know. To tell you the truth, I've kind of gotten used to it."

"Yeah? Well, I haven't," Heyes retorted.

"No? I suppose we ought to do something about that, then." Kid leaned in.

Hmm. Maybe he _could_ get used to it, at that.

*****

Kid eventually managed to talk Heyes into taking the paregoric by agreeing to lie down himself and get some rest. He wouldn't sleep, of course, and Heyes didn't really expect him to, but the little fiction made them both feel better. Kid held Heyes as he drifted off, the pain lines smoothed away, his breathing easy and even, and knew a deep sense of peace. He kept the vigil until he heard the sounds of folks stirring in the rooms around them. The doctor would probably be coming by soon.

Kid slipped out from under the covers, careful not to jostle the bed, and looked around with a satisfied air. He drew back the curtains to let in the early morning light. The sunshine reached in and filled the room. The shadows were gone.


End file.
